


Some Kind of Pain

by bactaqueen



Category: Captain America (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:50:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bactaqueen/pseuds/bactaqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers has lost Bucky Barnes--again. Sam Wilson is there to drive the pain away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Kind of Pain

**Title:** Some Kind of Pain  
 **Author:** bactaqueen  
 **Rating:**  E  
 **Warnings:** unfavorable consideration of female love interest, angst, sadness, pain, barebacking, magically convenient lube location  
 **Setting:** post-Captain America Vol. 5 #13  
 **Characters:** Sam Wilson/Steve Rogers  
 **Disclaimer:** This is a work of fiction. Characters belong to their respective owners. No profit is earned and no infringement is intended.  
 **Summary:** Steve Rogers has lost Bucky Barnes--again. Sam Wilson is there to fuck the pain away.

 

 

Sam rounds a corner in the Village and falls in beside Steve, his arms and legs pumping, warmed up and ready for the rest of the run back to Brooklyn. Steve spares him a glance, nods once, and doesn't look at him again. Sam didn't expect more than that. 

It's a warm sweet morning in New York City. There's nothing unusual or strange about it. Even Steve seems normal: barely breaking a sweat, dressed in the modern Army PT uniform, halfway through his twenty-mile run. If Sam wasn't so sure, he might think everything that had happened in West Virginia was just a really bad dream.

But he is sure. It wasn't a dream. It was real and it was fucked-up and it was insane.

And it's the only reason he's out sweating his ass off today. Sam cuts his eyes at Steve as they wait for the light to change. Steve might tell himself that he can work through it on his own, and this run certainly proves that theory, but Sam knows he can't. Steve Rogers is strong. He's not that strong. Sam isn't stupid enough to think he really understands what's going on inside Steve's head, but he understands enough. He understands Steve. Things are wrong. Very, very wrong. Steve needs help.

Sharon's out. Sam doesn't approve of the way she treated Steve during the op. The decision about Bucky--that wasn't her call to make. She should have trusted Steve. Should have backed him up. Afterward, she should have come around. For the last two days, Sam has watched. Well, the birds watched, and Sam listened. Sharon hasn't so much as called. She blames Steve for Agent Tapper's death and for a lot more besides. Steve blames himself enough, he doesn't need it from his friends, too.

The light changes, and off they go. Sam keeps pace with Steve out of sheer determination of will.

Steve's got a short list of people he can count on. Sharon. Fury, maybe, but it's not Fury's responsibility to babysit his soldiers, and that's exactly how he'd see it, even if he and Steve could be considered "friendly." Tony, Sam thinks, would be just as bad as Sharon in his own special way.

Steve won't see the doctors. Sam doesn't even question that. He might go, he might say the right things, but he won't get anything good out of it. What could he say to them, anyway? The Soviets' secret weapon was my boy sidekick and the only friend I had for a long time, now he's gone again and it's my fault again. Even if Steve did see the doctors, they just wouldn't get it. They know the science. The textbooks. They don't know the man.

Sam knows the man. Sam knows that he can help. He knows that he can be exactly what Steve needs right now.

So they run. Through the Village, through NoHo and down, across Bowery to Delancey and across the bridge. In Brooklyn, Steve seems to breathe a little easier. He slows from a run to a jog. Sam keeps pace. He doesn't try to make Steve talk and Steve doesn't volunteer anything; if it wasn't for the way he holds back, doesn't outrun Sam or push harder than Sam's capable of, Sam might believe Steve was ignoring him.

The sun is high and Sam's t-shirt and shorts stick uncomfortably to his skin when they finally make it back to Steve's place. They stand together on the sidewalk in front of the building for long moments, silent, breathing hard and in tandem, letting their bodies rest. For a moment.

Steve looks at him. "Are you coming in?"

"Yeah," Sam says. "I'll hold the bag for you."

Steve's lips twitch like he might even want to smile at that.

It's weird going through the holographic wall. It always is. Once they're inside, everything is warm and silent. Warm, because even now, Steve can't take the cold. Sam doesn't blame him. If he'd spent seventy years on ice, he might never be warm again, either. But Sam didn't spend seventy years on ice and he's hot and sticky, so on their way to the big open room that serves as Steve Rogers' private gym, Sam strips his faded yellow t-shirt over his head. He leaves it wadded up on a weight bench, but Steve doesn't even give him a side-eye. Okay. Not good. Not good at all.

While Steve wraps his hands, Sam finds cold bottles of water in the tiny corner refrigerator. He finishes one and starts another quickly. He doesn't have the super-stamina Steve does. Just the thought of Captain America's workout regimen is usually enough to make Sam feel like he's run twenty miles; catching a train and running the last ten with him, well, his muscles are going to be complaining for days.

Sometimes, Sam thinks the old man spends so much time working out just to burn off the excess energy the serum gives him. He's also pretty sure that there are other ways Steve could burn off that energy, but with things over between him and Sharon and no prospects for a steady partner willing to put up with his crazy schedule and epic manpain, what else is he supposed to do?

He's got some ideas. But he thinks there'll be time enough for those later. Sam brings two bottles of water and sets them on the floor at the wall near the punching back. He smiles to himself. Steve's a man's man and the 21st century, well, things are different now. To any other man, Sam would suggest he find himself a fuckbuddy and schedule regular sessions. But Steve Rogers has held on to some quaint antiquities of social mores. Sam is pretty sure "fuckbuddy" wouldn't fly.

Steve is rolling his head, cracking his neck. Sam stretches, then braces himself and plants his hands on the bag. Steve meets his eyes, briefly. It's only then that Sam notices how red-rimmed and bloodshot they are. He realizes with a start that if Steve is crying, he wouldn't know, not from all the sweat on his face and the way exertion changes his breathing. Sam resists the urge to frown. There's nothing he can do about it, so he just nods his readiness.

His resolve wavers. Maybe he's wrong. Maybe this is much worse than he thinks. Maybe he can't help.

Steve throws the first punch and Sam puts his back into supporting the bag. Steve works it over. Each punch comes with full weight and force of the super soldier behind it. It's everything Sam can do to hang on. This isn't the first time they've done this, it won't be the last, but he's consistently amazed by Steve's strength. In real fights, he's always impressed with Steve's careful planning of each punch. Here, in private, where it's safe, where no one can be hurt, Steve really lets loose. He doesn't plan, doesn't calculate, he just hits. High. Low. In. Out. If the bag were a body, Steve would smash orbitals, pulverize noses, crush cheekbones, snap ribs, tenderize intestines, shatter pelvises. If the bag were a body, it would be an unrecognized mess of blood and bone fragments by the time Steve finished.

The bag, Sam knows, is Steve. Steve takes everything out here, or he tries to. This is how he works through the anger, the self-loathing, everything left over from the war, from the fights now with monsters and gods and supervillains. This is how he deals with hating himself--one day, Sam might understand why Steve hates himself so much, but he's not holding his breath--and with his survivor's guilt. Most of Steve's guilt is survivor's guilt, Sam thinks. Steve Rogers carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's a cliche, it's stupid, but there it is. No matter what, Steve thinks he has to go it alone. And why wouldn't he? Sam leans into the bag, absorbing Steve's rage through sand and leather. Why wouldn't he think that? No family. Few friends before, even fewer now. How many times did he lose Bucky? This makes three now, doesn't it? Sam can't quite remember. All alone in that plane, facing Schmidt--Sam has read the file, has heard Steve tell the story. And then the ice. Waking up in an unfamiliar world, the only person who still remembers the man he was before the war is a hundred-year-old nursing home patient with dementia. When Steve saw her, she talked about him as if he were someone else. To everyone else, he's a tool, a weapon, a legend. He's not even real to Sharon. He's her grandmother's war stories, a symbol of the life Sharon wants for herself.

Sam likes Sharon. He does. He thinks she's beautiful and dangerous and smart and strong and he completely understands why Steve fell for her, why Steve still loves her even if he won't admit it to himself. But she's not what Steve needs right now. Sharon is too hard. She's too sharp. Sharon is a weapon. Steve doesn't need a weapon. Steve needs a shield.

Steve needs Sam.

Steve has Tony, but Sam knows as well as anyone that Tony is terrible when it comes to anything like this. Booze, he'd say. Steve can't get drunk. Sex, he'd say. But Steve doesn't do meaningless, he can't, it's not in his nature, no matter how adaptable he is. Steve can't do talking, which is good because neither can Tony. They're matched well enough in that way. Sam doesn't need Steve to talk. There's nothing Steve could say that Sam doesn't already think he knows.

No. Sam is Steve's best option now.

Steve's laying into the bag, grunting now with the exertion of each blow. Sweat soaks his t-shirt; it clings to every muscle. His shorts aren't faring much better. He doesn't even move anymore, doesn't even change his punches. He just stands in place, one knee forward, weight evenly distributed, and he pummels the bag at stomach-level. He just keeps hitting, keeps going, harder and faster and harder and faster until his knees wobble and give and he collapses against the bag. Sam isn't ready and almost doesn't catch him. Steve presses his face to the leather and Sam listens to the harsh, ragged breathing. He watches Steve shudder, fine tremors of exhaustion. He doesn't move. He holds the bag, and Steve, until Steve raises his head.

His hair flops forward, drenched. His eyes are redder, bloodshot, puffy. His lips are red, too, where he bit them. He looks at Sam and Sam doesn't think he's ever seen Steve so broken.

"Sam."

It's all there in that one word, and if Sam had any doubts before, everything in Steve's voice, in his face, drives them away. Sam lets the bag go.

Steve comes willingly into his arms. It's not like they haven't hugged before. But not like this. Never like this. Steve has never been so lost, so... shattered. Steve has never needed Sam, really needed him, as a friend and more, to hold him up when he can't hold himself.

There are times, Sam thinks, holding Steve tight, when Steve has lost everything. He has done it probably more than Sam knows. But this one cuts the deepest. Bucky was gone, and then he wasn't. Bucky died a hero, a kid, a symbol. To find that it wasn't true, that Bucky was stolen and used against everything he believed in--that while Steve was frozen and lost, Bucky was revived and tormented and kept on a leash--to know that Steve couldn't help him, couldn't save him, even in the end... Sam can't even imagine the depth of pain. He tries to think. Tries to imagine if Steve were taken from him and used by AIM or HYDRA. How would he feel facing down his best friend? How would he feel if Steve had killed hundreds, maybe thousands, of SHIELD agents? How would he feel if he was able to show Steve what he'd done, and rather than try to make up for it, Steve just ended it all? What if Steve deprived Sam of even the chance to help, to save him?

It makes him feel cold.

Then Steve's mouth is hot under his, and some of that cold burns away in the heat between them. Steve's clutching his sides with stiff fingers, parting his lips. Sam smells sweat. Sweat and heat and even though he thinks it might be in his head, he thinks he smells sadness.

Or maybe that's just how Steve always smells these days.

Sam kisses him and keeps kissing him until Steve stops clutching his sides hard enough to bruise. He wants to tell Steve that he's not going anywhere, not now, not ever if he has any say in the matter. But then he thinks that Steve probably believed that about Bucky, too. So Sam kisses him. He pours it all into the kisses, hard and desperate, his tongue sliding along Steve's, exploring every inch of Steve's mouth. He tightens his arms around him, pressing them together from shoulders to knees. Steve trembles like he's trying to hold himself together, like he's struggling for control. Sam shoves his hands under Steve's shirt and digs his fingers into the small of Steve's back. I've got you, he wants to say. I've got you and we're not going anywhere.

Except they do go somewhere. When Steve's hands at Sam's sides twitch and open, Sam starts walking them toward the futon in the corner of the room. It's flat, a lumpy pillow and a tangled sheet atop it, and Sam knows that Steve has been sleeping down here. In the gym. Close to the bags and the weight benches and the pommel horse. Steve can't even take comfort in his own home.

Maybe he can after this.

Sam falls first, bringing Steve with him, atop him. It won't do for long, but it'll do to get the necessities out of the way. He strips Steve's soaked t-shirt off and kicks off his own shoes. He sucks hard kisses along Steve's neck and collarbones and listens to Steve's breathing stutter and jerk. Steve is moving restlessly, half-trying to escape, half-trying to crawl under Sam's skin.

When Steve says, "Sam," this time it's a plea, it's an outright plea for Sam to make him just forget. Sam flips Steve to his back.

The futon isn't big enough. It doesn't matter.

Sam pushes his shorts off. He finishes stripping Steve. He unwraps his hands, carefully. Steve's knuckles are bruised and swollen and Sam kisses them, more reverently than he means to, but Steve needs to understand. He needs to feel it, needs to see it. Steve needs to know that he's not alone. That he doesn't have to deal with any of this on his own. He puts his knees between Steve's and lays down, chest to chest and belly to belly and hips to hips. Steve grabs Sam's side again, anchoring him, as if he's afraid Sam will disappear. No. He won't let that happen. Sam frames Steve's face with his hands and stares down into his eyes, waiting. Waiting for the clouds to clear.

Sam says, "Steve."

The light goes on, finally. Like someone's home. Steve looks at him and finally seems to really see him.

Sam dips his head and slants his mouth over Steve's. There's heat again, more sadness, but this time, Steve meets him. When his fingers curl, it's not desperation holding Sam close.

Steve is Captain America. He's good all the way through. He's strong and forceful and he believes. He believes in the goodness of people and in doing the right thing and he believes in the people he loves. But Steve is also Steve Rogers. The lonely kid from Brooklyn who had one friend. The science experiment who just wanted to do his part. The man out of time, woken from an icy grave and thrust into a world he helped to save, a world he doesn't belong to. Sam knows Steve. Sam knows Captain America. And Sam knows that Captain America will always carry on, but that Steve Rogers doesn't think he can.

Steve Rogers needs someone to remind him.

Sam kisses his way down Steve's neck, giving them both the chance to breathe. Steve's hands dig into his sides and Sam sucks kisses along Steve's collarbones, across his shoulders. He tastes sweat, skin, Steve's soap. He inhales, nostrils flaring, committing this all to memory just in case he ever has to remember how to do it again.

Steve's running his hands over his hair, over his back, up and down his arms. He's not rocking, but Sam can feel Steve's erection against his own, trapped between their bodies. Good, then. Steve is here. Present.

He scratches his beard across Steve's chest, rubs his chin over one of his hard pink nipples, and listens to his ragged gasp. Sam wonders, briefly, if this was something he ever did with Bucky--and decides it doesn't matter, because Steve needs _him_ right now. The ghost of Bucky is banished for the time being.

He works his way down, bruising kisses and sharp bites and long, slow passes of his tongue over every muscle in Steve's stomach. He keeps moving until he's kneeling on the floor at the edge of the futon, until Steve's hips are in his hands. He spares a moment, just one, to look up the length of Steve's body. And then he swallows the length of Steve's cock all at once.

Steve Rogers, ever polite, does not buck. He does not grab Sam by his hair and thrust. Steve twists one hand in the tangled sheet and grabs the edge of the futon with the other, and though the muscles in his thighs stand out in relief with the restrained urge to surge up, he does not move. Sam bobs his head, sucking on the way up, breathing out heavily on the way down. He strokes fingers lightly along Steve's thighs until the muscles jump and squirm. He circles fingertips around and around, swirling nonsense patterns on Steve's sac. He forces him to stay in the moment. Every time Steve starts to relax, Sam does something. A scrape of teeth. His tongue along his leaking slit. Pinching in the insides of his thighs. Squeezing his balls--carefully. He keeps Steve present, keeps Steve rooted in reality, does not let him forget for even a moment that Sam is here. Sam is doing this.

He can't fix it all. He can't take away the truth about Bucky or Sharon's blame or the strangeness of the world beyond these doors. He can't make that world take care of its own shit. He can't make Captain America obsolete and give Steve Rogers a chance at a normal life. He can't heal the cracks in Steve's heart or in his mind. What he can do, what he will do, is prove to Steve as many times as it takes that _he is not alone_.

When Steve is close, when he's wheezing and his hands are working in wrist-breaking circles, Sam releases him. He licks a wet stripe the length of his cock, now hard and ruddy and glistening. He kisses Steve's thighs and reaches under the edge of the futon. He knows it's there.

Steve is no longer wheezing by the time Sam finds the bottle. It's smaller than he expected, but it'll work. He wraps a hand around it and pushes up. Steve meets his eyes, wild. Sam's chest swells. Steve is definitely present. Steve is turned on and not thinking, not worrying, not locked in his own head and beating himself up.

Sam leans down and kisses him soundly. Steve rises to meet him.

The kiss lingers, stretches. Sam sinks, covering Steve's body with his own. He braces himself with one arm laid alongside them, forearm under Steve's shoulder. Steve wraps his arms around Sam and spreads his legs and hooks his calves behind Sam's knees. It's the only invitation he needs. Still locked in the kiss, stroking Steve's tongue with his own, sucking in his breath, Sam flips open the cap of the lube. Clumsy, he squeezes some out onto his fingers, and he drops the bottle on the futon beside Steve's hip.

He breaks their kiss only to watch Steve's face as he presses two slick fingers to Steve's asshole. His blue eyes roll back and his eyelashes flutter and his face screws up in pleasure. It's all Sam needs. He kisses his neck, bites him, and works two fingers into Steve, past the second barrier, all the way to the second knuckle. He turns his hand and crooks his fingers and Steve shudders under him.

This time, when Steve says his name, he's not asking Sam to take the pain away. He's asking Sam to keep the pain at bay.

Sam slicks his dick and shifts until the head of it is rubbing against Steve. Steve just lifts his hips and waits.

Steve gives a full-body tension-melting sigh when Sam slides in. He loops one arm around Sam's back and hauls him down. Steve's cock is trapped between them, caught in the friction between their bellies each time Sam rocks into Steve. He presses his face to Steve's neck, parts his lips and closes his eyes, and he feels Steve's face hot against his own neck. He's not in any hurry, wants to draw this out as long as he can, to keep Steve grounded here. With him. Sam's hips roll, slow lazy thrusts in and agonizing withdrawals, searching for the right angle of his hips that will make Steve shudder with each thrust. He finds it and he holds that angle.

Steve's mouth works against his neck. At first, Sam thinks it's just Steve's clumsy silent sweet nothings. Then he recognizes the pattern. Recognizes the new wet heat against his skin. He bows his head and presses kisses to the curve of Steve's neck and the top of his shoulder and it's all he can do. It's all he can offer. He finds Steve's head with the hand on the bed, slides his palm under to hold him.

If anyone knew how much pain Steve Rogers kept inside himself, the world might not be so quick to demand so much of him.

Steve comes quietly and without fuss. There's tension in his body, and then it's gone, and there's new wet heat spreading over Sam's stomach. While Steve is still trembling, Sam moves to pull out.

"No." Steve's voice is thick, wet. He kisses Sam's neck and pulls away just enough to gasp, to tell him, "Go on, Sam. It's okay."

He hesitates. That's not really why he--

Steve plants a hand on his ass and shoves him forward.

That's all it takes. Sam muffles his cry against Steve's cheek, then turns his face and seeks his mouth as he pulls out, gingerly, raw and oversensitive. Too late, he thinks about safety, about--

Steve kisses him. Long and lingering, full of tongue. Steve holds him tight and Sam is incapable of thinking of anything but Steve.

They're side by side moments later, sweaty skin of their arms pressed together, Sam staring at the exposed beams and plumbing and wiring at the ceiling. He listens to Steve beside him, Steve who finally seems... okay. As okay as he can, Sam guesses. At least not crushed by the weight of everything that has happened.

Steve fumbles for Sam's hand. Sam grasps it, and Steve squeezes. He opens his mouth to say something and Sam waits. Waits for Steve to tell him, "thanks." That's what he'd say, isn't it? It makes him smile. He appreciates Steve's predictability.

But Steve doesn't say anything. And when Sam lifts his head and looks over, Steve is peaceful. His eyes are closed, long lashes against his cheeks, mouth parted, breathing even. He's sleeping.

Sam pulls the sheet over both of them and tugs Steve against his side. He'll never be enough. Nothing will ever be enough to cure Steve Rogers of all his pain. But Sam can be there to take the edge off.


End file.
